


Another Party Gone Wrong

by stelliums



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Human AU, Human Jeremy Heere's Squip, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 20:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21105899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelliums/pseuds/stelliums
Summary: SquipJere week prompt 5 - Party





	Another Party Gone Wrong

_“Are you sure this is a good idea?” _

“Oh. That’s why you didn’t show up.”

Jeremy ended the call without asking for any more explanation. Michael had never been too keen on the idea of going to the party. It wasn’t hosted by anyone he knew, but at least he wouldn’t be alone. Chloe, Brooke, Rich and Jake had arrived earlier – he had recognised Brooke’s car out of the vehicles in the driveway. So even if Michael had chickened out, he wouldn’t be by himself, right?

...who was he kidding. He would almost certainly be alone for the entire night.

He let go of the breath he had been holding and opened the door to the house. It was much larger inside than the outside suggested. Everything looked so fragile. Whose idea was it to hold a party there? Every glass surface in the building would be broken by the end of the night, and most of the tables in the hallway were shining with it. It was louder than he had thought it would be outside; the furniture looked as though it was shaking with the beat of the music. Most of the tables were covered in red solo cups already but nobody hung around in the hallway. Odd, for what otherwise looked exactly like a high school party.

The door to the living room was already open, light pouring through. Jeremy focused on maintaining quiet steps despite the music. If he could, he would have curled in on himself. He felt small in the much bigger room, surrounded by crowds of people. He was taller than most of them, which didn't bode well for his initial idea of 'don't be seen'. The other people looked older than him, seniors most likely. He hoped that nobody would recognise him from school.

He should have stayed at Michael's place. They had agreed to go together, so Jeremy had taken himself back home to get ready and Michael had initially intended to meet him there. He wandered around the room and glanced at his phone. Should he ask Michael to pick him up? There would be a lot of 'I told you so's' but that was better than being alone at a party, surrounded by strangers.

"You okay? You look tense." He heard someone ask from behind him, so he turned around. The boy was only a few inches shorter than him. The first thing that Jeremy noticed about him was his hair. It was dark blue, almost black, the tint made more obvious by the flashing lights. It was impossible for the stranger not to have dyed it to make it look like that. The colour of his eyes was difficult to make out, but the flushed look on his face was anything but. Whoever this stranger was, he was at least a little drunk. Or high. Either way, it looked as though he was having a far better time than Jeremy was.

He gave the stranger a crooked smile in the hope that he would take the hint that he was fine and leave him alone. The boy returned the smile and handed Jeremy a red solo cup filled to the brim with some kind of liquid. Was it punch, or something stronger? Jeremy tried to take a sip but ended up spilling most of the drink on the floor when someone crashed into him. He was about to mutter a thousand apologies before he was pulled to the corner of the room, cup still in hand. He took a small sip out of it then - it was sweeter than expected, a pleasant taste than 'drink given to someone at a high school party' brought to mind.

"I'll repeat the question. Are you alright? You're shaking." The stranger asked, glancing at the hand that was holding the cup. "'m Eric. Welcome home- I mean, to my home. I live here."

Jeremy blinked at him, trying not to laugh at his slip-up. However intoxicated he appeared to be, Eric acted almost as if he hadn't had anything at all. "Y-yeah, I was about to leave-"

"-leave? Come on, you've just gotten here!” He insisted.

Jeremy couldn’t recognise him from school. Despite introducing himself as the host of the party, Eric didn’t seem at ease as he should in his own house. Then again, he’d find it difficult to be comfortable if strangers were one misplaced step away from destroying what looked like very expensive furniture at all times.

“...I guess I can stay for a bit longer.”

“Great, follow me.” He said, taking his arm to lead him towards another door. Jeremy could barely object.

The door led to another, smaller room. It was furnished with a sofa and some beanbags, along with a TV. A games console was hooked up to it. It was similar to Jeremy’s bedroom, except much larger and fully dedicated to leisure.

“You didn’t look too comfortable in there. Here’s quieter, kinda.” Eric explained, collapsing onto the sofa. The beat of the music could still be heard from the door, as well as the sound of people.

“Well, I... thought I saw someone I knew...?”

“I know most of the people out there.”

“Why aren’t you with them?” He blurted out, sitting down next to him.

“...don’t want to. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried being cool, but it’s exhausting. I wear the right clothes, say the right things, sure. It works. But I guess you can say I like my own company.”

Jeremy listened to him intently. Eric did look cool, but a different kind of cool to what he knew. It seemed completely effortless, despite the effort put into the designer clothes and dyed hair. He realised that he was smiling at him. Like a dork.

“...yeah, I totally know what that’s like.” He said, unaware of how sarcastic he had come across.

Eric raised an eyebrow. Even someone who had known him for under an hour could tell when he was lying. “Stop trying not to smile.” He said instead, “I can tell, you know.”

He leaned in a little closer and Jeremy leaned away until his head hit the back of the sofa. The leather was soft yet firm. He smiled, albeit more awkwardly than before, wondering what it would take for Eric to move away. Did he want him to move away? The other boys’ lips twitched into a smirk. He was close enough to smell the sweet, alcoholic drink from earlier on his breath.

A loud noise from outside interrupted them. He couldn’t tell whether it was the sound of glass that had snapped Eric out of it or the sounds of distress, screaming and shock from outside.

“I... need to see what’s going on. Stay here if you want, I don’t care.” He murmured, stepping outside. Jeremy followed him, unsure of what else to do if something had happened.

Eric’s face went pale. The floor was covered in tiny shards of glass from the chandelier that had hung on the ceiling. “Do you... do you know them?” He asked Jeremy, gesturing to Rich, Chloe, Jake and Brooke. Chloe and Brooke were frozen still and Jake had darted over to a group of other boys after he noticed Eric’s eyes on him.

Rich had taken much of the damage. Splinters covered his face and arms, blood welling up where the cuts were deepest. Jeremy knew Rich as the tagalong kid that followed Jake everywhere, but that was all. He hadn't been the nicest kid, either.

“...unfortunately.” He admitted.

He sighed, as if he knew that something like this was going to happen. "Take him to the car with me. I can't trust anyone here to take the glass out safely."

He didn’t question why Eric had asked him to go. Rich still looked like he was in shock as Eric carefully moved him along, through the expensive hallway and into the cold air outside. Jeremy dutifully followed.

Eric helped Rich into an expensive-looking car. His own, or his parent’s? Eric was a similar age to him, maybe a year or so older if he took a guess.

”H-hey–! Watch it, that hurts!”

“Just hold still!” He heard Eric mutter as he managed to get Rich into the back seat. When Jeremy had thought that he might be told to sit in the back, just to keep an eye on Rich, Eric patted the passenger seat. It was better than sitting with Rich.

The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, save Rich’s pained sounds. Then Eric broke the quiet, “This always happens. Something like this, anyway. Something breaks, people fight, someone gets hurt.” He shrugged.

“Has anyone gotten... badly hurt?”

“Yeah, yeah, all the time. Nobody’s died yet, though.”

Somehow his last comment sounded less reassuring than intended.

They reached the hospital; Jeremy helped Rich inside. School would be... different the next week, if Rich was sober enough to remember any of it. Once he was taken in to get the glass removed, Eric placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Didn’t mean to take you away from the party.”

Jeremy turned to meet his eyes. “...not that I wanted to be there.”

“So I didn’t convince you to stay?” There was an inflection in his voice that Jeremy couldn’t place. But despite that, he shook his head. Eric smiled over at him. "Maybe lunch then?"

"Y-yeah, sounds good." He stammered.


End file.
